By the other side of this table sat a hooded man who expelled the smoke he’d inhaled from his long pipe, sending a musky aroma into the air that caused the young man’s nose to wrinkle.

“Why do you love cloud weed so much, Ser Anthony?” he asked, his voice changing, losing his practiced commoner’s drawl for the speech of a noble.

“It helps keep the aches and pains of old age at bay, Your Highness,” the hooded man answered in a soft voice that was almost a whisper.

The prince who pretended he was a bard frowned.

“And you’re alright with reeking of wet grass and mud?”

“To smell of nature is the privilege of the old.”

“You’re not that old.”

The prince carefully placed his lute on an empty seat before returning to the conversation.

“I heard that cloud weed’s a calming herb.”

“It is.”

A wry grin flashed on the prince’s face.

“Then why are you still holding your sword?” he asked.

Truly, Ser Anthony’s other hand had been holding tightly onto the sword resting against the tavern’s back wall.

“Stay your hand. The matter’s settled. No need to shed blood here and draw attention to us,” he insisted.

“The matter is far from settled…” Reluctantly, Ser Anthony let go of his sword. “And you drew attention to yourself first.”

“A bard’s work gathers a different sort of attention,” the prince reasoned.

This was true, at least for him.

Song and rhyme, and sometimes even dance, were the prince’s coping mechanisms against the scorn often sent his way. They were his escape from the burdens of his ill fate. He wasn’t bad at it either. Indeed, the prince proved a quick study in the performance arts, though the Sovereign might have preferred her son’s talents laid elsewhere.

“My ears wrung so badly from all their biting commentary that I thought a song might help keep them from calling me names,” he chuckled.

After exhaling another column of smoke, Ser Anthony asked, “And did you succeed?”

The prince glanced over his shoulder and listened in on nearby conversations. He could hear them clearly enough, “Ill-Fated Prince this,” and “Ill-Fated Prince that,” though these surly tavern patrons seemed to be in a merrier mood than earlier.

“Let’s call it a draw,” he concluded.

Ser Anthony chuckled. “Hearts and minds aren’t won easily with just a song.”

“A magical song might have,” the prince argued.

He’d often heard it said that the master bards of the Imperium could turn the hearts of men and beasts alike with a performance infused with sorcery. If only he had even a bit of magic inside him, perhaps then…

The prince shook his head. There was no point in wishing the impossible were possible.

“Your singing might not win them over just yet,” Ser Anthony appeased, “though your mad plan just might, Your Highness.”

“Call me Bram. Just Bram.”

“I’ll do no such thing.” Ser Anthony took another long puff of his pipe and expelled it a moment later like a plume of smoke from a chimney. “You’ve been insulted enough today.”

“I’m used to it.”

The contempt of the commoners was nothing new for Bram. He’d lived with contempt for as long as he could remember, and he remembered much. Even the first time he’d opened his eyes on the day his mother gave birth to him. The seventh prince of the Atlan Imperium was special, though not in the way those around him hoped for. Over time, their hopes dwindled, twisting into scorn, until finally, only Ser Anthony remained by his side.

Bram gazed fondly at the old knight who kept on smoking his pipe.

Underneath his hood was a weathered face with short-cropped, salt-and-pepper hair and a thick handlebar mustache. Even seated, the old knight seemed tall, with shoulders nearly as broad as Bram’s.

“They insult you because they don’t know how hard you toil for them.” Again, Ser Anthony reached for his sword, and again, he reluctantly withdrew his hand. “It’s taking all my resolve not to arrest these fools. Not out of compassion—I’ve no mercy for those who defame your good name—but because I know your courtiers will find some way to blame you for any incident in the city.”

“The nobles of Bastille like me less than even the commoners do,” Bram chuckled. “It’s as if I’d never left the Sovereign’s court…Only now, I have a bigger target on my back and no ally to watch it.”

“You have one ally in this city.”

Bram couldn’t help smiling.

He never said it aloud, but Ser Anthony’s steadfast loyalty was one of the largest reasons he could shrug off the stress of being House Attilan’s ill-fated prince.

The ‘Ill-Fated Prince’…this was the title his older siblings gave Bram after it became clear that he was a child whom the gods had cursed with a body that couldn’t become a vessel for the magical energies permeating Aarde’s western continent of Gaullia. He was magicless in an empire where sorcery was the dominant power, and though not a crime exactly, to be magicless was thought to be the harshest of failings among nobles and commoners alike.

Bram hated hearing this moniker spoken aloud and hated it more whenever he thought of it himself.

…And yet I sang it easily enough.

“You mentioned my mad plan…and you’re right.” Bram picked up the flagon of ale on his side of the table and breathed in its heady scent. “It is mad—positively insane… If I had more time, maybe I’d try something else.”

Bram sighed.

“But time is a luxury I don’t have.” His gaze fixed on the frothy brown liquid spilling from his flagon. “I must show results by the beginning of the Conjuring Season, or I’ll lose my one chance to prove my worth…perhaps even my life.”

Ser Anthony knew his prince hadn’t exaggerated. For a royal to fail in their responsibilities, death was a likely consequence.

“Nine months is too short a time to change a kingdom’s fate unless you’re willing to make a risky gamble,” he conceded, “but at what cost?”

“If I can help make Lotharian lives better, it would be worth the price.” Bram raised his flagon higher. “Making the failing Kingdom of Lotharin great again…it’ll be the greatest trick that’ll ever be sold—and for that, I’ll need the help of a master trickster.”

Even as he said the words, hope blossomed inside him—the hope that people would stop calling him by his hated moniker one day…that they would find him worthy.

“You’ve grown.”

That, Bram believed, was an understatement.

At seventeen, Atlan’s seventh prince was tall and muscular with wavy pale blonde hair and irises the color of molten gold—the physical traits that proved his bloodline—though he’d recently dyed his hair a dark purple to keep people from recognizing him. Bram’s sun-kissed face was oval, almost delicate, with long lashes complementing almond-shaped eyes, a long, pointy nose, and full lips that were the color of fresh blood.

Many have claimed that the prince was the perfect likeness of his mother. It was a fact Ser Anthony reiterated when he said, “How like the Sovereign you’ve become.”

“I’m nothing like her,” Bram laughed. “I have none of her wit, her strength, and possess only an ounce of her charisma…”

Embarrassed, he took a long swig of his flagon—and immediately spat out the strong ale that burned his throat.

“Fuck!” This word felt peculiar on his tongue, as if it didn’t belong, at least not to any language known to the Imperium. Still, it was strangely comforting for Bram to bellow this alien curse aloud during times like this one. “What sort of gods-awful piss do they serve here?!”

“It’s called grog,” Ser Anthony answered distractedly.

He was busy wiping drops of spit and grog from his face.

When he finished cleaning himself, the old knight added, “It’s cheap and packs a punch. The commoners love it.”

“Do they…?” Bram gazed at his flagon with a wary eye. “Grog, it’s a clever name…”

He took a breath, and another. Then, with resolve firm in his heart, Bram took a swig of grog, downing the whole flagon in one long gulp.

“Bloody hell, that tasted terrible.” He breathed hard, trying not to gag, before slamming the empty flagon onto the table. “I’ll have another!”

He downed a second flagon of frothy grog, though his cheeks grew crimson from the effort. Bram bought a third cup, and when he finished it—slower this time—his head ached so terribly it was as if someone was banging a sword against a shield inside his skull.

‘Ping!’

Bram ignored the otherworldly message floating above the table because he didn’t need it to tell him what he already knew; three flagons of grog were murder to one’s liver.

Ser Anthony eyed him with concern. “Why did you drink so much of it if you don’t enjoy the taste?”

“How could I ever hope to lead the people,” Bram wiped the grog from his mouth with a napkin, “if I can’t even understand them or their tastes?”

He was too busy trying not to puke to notice his knight smiling warmly at him.

“Honestly, though,” Bram rose groggily to his feet, “this is about as much understanding as I can manage…”

His head swam, and his vision blurred.

“Gods, you’re the only noble I know who gets drunk over a mere three pints of grog,” Ser Anthony teased.

“Not so. My younger siblings have yet to learn the art of drinking.” Bram raised a finger, though it looked to himself like he’d raised three. “And this grog is poison—it’s potent stuff, I tell you.”

“It’s diluted with honey water, actually.” Ser Anthony laughed. “Shall we stay a while longer until you’re feeling better?”

“No, no, I’m fine.” Bram took several deep breaths and then dropped the last of the griffins he’d earned onto the table. “Come, Ser Anthony. The hour grows late, and the Loom of Fate is—”

He dove to the side, spilling grog and luncheon all over the floor…It would be awhile before Lotharin’s new governor felt better enough to go on his adventure…